A pink grasshopper is spotted at the Messingham Sand Quarry in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, UK in the second decade of July 2023. The dazzling creature is incredibly rare, with experts estimating that a person has a chance of about 1 per cent of seeing one in their lifetime. (Photo by Calvin Taylor Lee/Animal News Agency)
A fuzzy caterpillar on a basil plant in west Bengal, India on December 25, 2023. The caterpillar’s defence system is its hair, which has microscopic barbs that break off easily in the skin of would-be predators. (Photo by Soumyabrata Roy/NurPhoto/Rex Features/Shutterstock)
Hornets are insects that are the largest eusocial wasps. Some species can reach up to 5.5 cm (2.2 in) in length. The true hornets make up the genus Vespa and are distinguished from other vespines by the width of the vertex (part of the head behind the eyes), which is proportionally larger in Vespa and by the anteriorly rounded gasters (the section of the abdomen behind the wasp waist). The best known species is the European hornet (Vespa crabro), about 2–3.5 cm in length, widely distributed throughout Europe, Russia, North America and Northeast Asia.
A grasshopper rests on a photographic camera during a meeting in the village of Alto Jamari called to face the threat of armed land grabbers invading the Uru-eu-wau-wau Indigenous Reservation near Campo Novo de Rondonia, Brazil on January 30, 2019. (Photo by Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters)
A Dead Leaf butterfly (Kallima inachu formosana, also called Orange Oakleaf Butterfly) rests on a tree trunk at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Tawian, 03 August 2019. Dead Leaf butterfly can be found in Tropical Asia from India to Japan. When its wings close, it resembles a dead leaf, providing camouflage against predators including birds, ants, spiders and wasps. (Photo by David Chang/EPA/EFE)